🕵️ Russian Spies Everywhere 🕵️ Open Thread

The absolute obsession with Russian spied, spying and Americans supposedly colluding with Russian spies is a sight to behold. Everyone, on the right of course, that so much as had Russian Dressing on their salad is suspected as stupid dupes for Russia at best or spies for Russia at worst.

Does eating Chinese make one a Chinese spy? It wouldn’t surprise me if the two opposition parties to the Republicans, the media and the Dems, made that innuendo next.

It is often said that the first casualty of war is the truth – often enough that no one seems quite sure who said it first.

In 1918 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. However, this was not recorded. In 1928 Arthur Ponsonby’s wrote: The ‘When war is declared, truth is the first casualty’. (Falsehood in Wartime) Samuel Johnson seems to have had the first word: ‘Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.’ (from The Idler, 1758)

I would suggest that the first casualty of political war is common sense.

In this latest round of name-calling, innuendo, rumor, distortions, lies and just plain nonsense the Dems have all ready collected two scalps from the Republicans. Mike Flynn was forced to resign and Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from investigating the Russian connections. That leaves an Obama appointment next in line. Won’t that be fun since it appears that most of the Obama people still in government believe it is their job not to serve the country but to bring Trump down?

I tend to regard Ben Shapiro’s excellent article as the best I’ve found on this topic so far.

Ben Shapiro: The ‘Trump Is A Russian Plant!’ Case Is Falling Apart. Here Are 4 Things You Need To Know

It’s now been months upon months of months of speculation about the supposedly nefarious connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Democrats have relied on Trump begging Russian dictator Vladimir Putin publicly to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, connections between former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the Russian government, and friendliness between Trump advisor General Michael Flynn and the Russians in order to suggest that Putin “hacked the election” on Trump’s behalf. They’ve also relied on various media reports suggesting that the intelligence community was participating in some sort of sophisticated surveillance operation that caught up Trump associates in chats with the Russian government.

There’s a lot of smoke.

Here’s the problem: there’s no fire.

At all.

We’re now six months in. Have we seen a single piece of actually incriminating evidence suggesting that Putin “hacked the election” on Trump’s behalf? Or have we just seen rumors and innuendos, all disowned in the ninth paragraph of a New York Times report headlining Trump-Russia contacts?

Then there is Trump’s paranoia about being wire-tapped or spied on by the Obama administration. Although if it’s true it isn’t really paranoia is it? At this point I don’t know if it’s true or not. Hell, I don’t even know who’s on first.

Now that all the Russian spy stuff seems to be falling apart, Flynn’s problem, if anything, seems to be that he was cozy with the Turks. What a let down. No Boris and Natasha images in the head. No evil bare-chested Putin on a horse to smear the right with. A Turk? A real let down.

Then too we have Obama’s word that he never spied on Trump. And we all know how much Obama’s word is worth.

Well so much for the veracity of the previous occupant of the White House. No surprise there.

ISIS must be feeling neglected these days. They are not the terrorist or enemy of the month flavor. Chop off heads, rape, murder, destroy and they barely make headlines. It must be very frustrating because how much further can they go? Even the picture of them teaching their children to be terrorists too barely gets a mention.

If nothing else should reassure us the fact that FBI director James Comey has once again reared his dishonest head and said there is and has been no wire-tapping of Trump. As far as veracity goes I don’t think Comey and the truth are within shouting distance of each other.

Although in the cartoon above he is speaking the truth to a certain degree IMO. He just needs to remove the word “absolute” from his statement.

The current President is convinced that the former President had him bugged and the former President is denying it. Since both are proven liars as is the media and the FBI Director has shown himself to be unfit to be a part of any law enforcement agency it is a real problem.

Politics has always been a dirty game. Even back when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were feuding and slinging mud. The public has always taken sides and railed again those that didn’t see things the way they did or do. I that case I am guilty as charged.

For the media who have tried to tar Trump and everyone that ever knew him as some kind of Russian spies, on the days they weren’t suggesting he was too stupid to tie his own shoes, put up or STHU!

I won’t even suggest the dishonest Democrats shut up – they are politicians after all and few things that you can count on from them – they will never shut up and never tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Why should they when the public accepts lies so easily.

“I’m sitting at home, adorned in Soviet Red so everyone will know how valuable I am. While I’m out, the patriarchy is taking care of their business and mine. But that’s just because I’m so valuable. Did I mention how valuable my contribution to society is? VALUABLE.”

A few school districts cancelled school creating major problems for parents suddenly scrambling to find childcare, aaaand, that’s pretty much it.

There was no disruption of service otherwise, no grand national impact or even local impact, aside from a few small annoyances.

Yes, I truly believe there is espionage (Aldrich Ames, Robert Harris, et al), hacking, surveillance by many countries but I’m getting weary of all the screeching because to me it’s just another ploy to cover up what is actually going on with Trump and government. He promised the moon and whatever – now deliver and quit using verbiage in an attempt to conceal lack of progress. Some may even say incompetence – what works in the business world may not work in government.
I’ll still give him time before making judgement calls but we can’t afford another president to ‘learn the job on the job’.

There is an old French adage that applies to the Republicans in Congress and perhaps the Trump Administration: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” (“The more things change, the more they stay the same”). The appetite for ever greater government spending appears to be no different than in previous years. This uncontrolled addiction, unless reined, in will cast a dark cloud over entire term of the Trump presidency.

Left-wing billionaire George Soros has given nearly a quarter of a billion dollars over the past fourteen years to groups that sponsored Wednesday’s “Day Without a Woman” protest, according to the Media Research Council.

Soros gave $246 million to 100 prominent left-wing groups that partnered with the Women’s March, including Planned Parenthood, the Center for American Progress, and People for the American Way (PFAW).

Not a Kucinich fan or of his goofy wife but right is right and wrong is wrong and if true it was wrong. We can’t believe things should be done right just for those we like. If so we become what the Democrats have become.

Pitzer College Latina Student Asks White People To Pay For Her Spring Break

A Latina student at Pitzer College sent an email through the student-talk listserv asking white students to pay for her trip to Oakland and National Parks across California. Leandra Vargas, a junior at Pitzer and a self-identified “queer person of color,” sent the following email to the student body:

Whatsgood lovely folks,

Support QPOC Spring Break Trip!

[A] bunch of us [are trying to] get away from this toxic institution for the break & we were lucky enough to be lent a car. however, gas is expensive. we are hoping [people] are willing to support us in our ventures out to queer [as f–] [O]akland & some national parks to find some spaceeee to breatheee.

[C]alling on white allies especially [for your] support– remember that everything that [you] are/have [right now] is due to the genocide and enslavement of our [people]… yet all [I’m] asking [for] is a bit of cash to get us [through] the week. [Thanks]

State representative Paulette Rakestraw has filed House Bill 509 which would require retailers to put a “digital blocking capability” on some devices to make “obscene material” inaccessible. Retailers, in this code section, would mean anyone who SELLS or LEASES a device that allows content to be accessed on the Internet. The “blocking capability” is required to make porn, child porn, revenge porn, websites about prostitution, and websites about sex trafficking all inaccessible.

Retailers would be required to have a telephone line where consumers could call to report complaints and it prohibits retailers from giving consumers intel on how to deactivate the blocking program themselves.

Here is the real humdinger: If you are 18 years of age or older, request in writing that you would like to deactivate the program, acknowledge in writing that you understand the dangers (yes, that is really the word they use) of deactivating the program, and pay a $20 fee, you can have the program removed from your device.

Mary Katharine Ham is just too funny. I am not ashamed to admit she did a much funnier job of talking abt HER “smart tv” than I did. Maybe because I’m a teetotaler. Or maybe because she is just funny as hell.